Ashley Belanger, reporting for Ars Technica back in August 2025:
After a public outburst over Grok’s App Store rankings,
on Monday, Elon Musk followed through on his threat to sue Apple
and OpenAI.At first, Musk appeared fixated on ChatGPT consistently topping
Apple’s “Must Have” app list — which Grok has never made — claiming Apple seemed to preference OpenAI, an Apple partner, over
all chatbot rivals. But Musk’s filing shows that the X
and xAI owner isn’t just trying to push for more Grok downloads on
iPhones — he’s concerned that Apple and OpenAI have teamed up to
completely dash his “everything app” dreams, which was
the reason he bought Twitter.
For what it’s worth, I just looked at the App Store editorially-curated “Popular iPhone Apps” list, and ChatGPT is in the top spot. Given the lawsuit Apple filed against OpenAI last week, I’d say this is pretty good anecdata that these editorial decisions in the App Store aren’t driven by favoritism. The top 10 downloads list for free iPhone apps currently looks like this (for me here in the U.S. App Store):
- Paramount+
- Netflix Game Controller
- ChatGPT
- Kalshi: Trade the World Cup
- Peacock TV: Stream TV & Movies
- Netshort – Popular Dramas & TV
- Threads
- TikTok Pro – Events
- Freecash – Get Paid Real Money
- Depop – Buy & Sell Clothes
There are some real winners on that list. But only one AI app: ChatGPT.
Musk alleges that the top downloads list is crooked too. That’s just projection. If Musk ran a popular App Store he’d put his thumb on the scale to make sure his own apps always top the list. That’s what he’s done with his personal account, and accounts aligned with his politics, on Twitter/X. Because that’s what he would do, he thinks that’s what Apple does. I really do think he believes the App Store’s top download lists are fixed, and that Grok is on the wrong side of the fix. Crooks think everyone is crooked. It’s just one of several ways that Musk is not hooked up right.
I suspect, though, that he’s no longer worried that Apple is putting its thumb on the scale to favor OpenAI. Maybe he should never-mind this lawsuit.
